Prospect of Dutch settlement pre fleet raised

The claim that Dutch survivors of shipwrecks had formed settlements in Australia before the First Fleet has captured imaginations.

Mainstream historians are generally sceptical because of a lack of hard evidence.

But, a New South Wales man believes he may have found a likely location for a settlement near Karikin Lakes, only 100 kilometres north of Perth.

He says the most likely candidates are the survivors of the Gilt Dragon disaster.

Most amazingly, he's suggested the settlement may have thrived into the 19th century but it seems tangible evidence of a Dutch settlement is yet to be found.

The ship, Gilt Dragon or Vergulde Draeck, was found off the West Australian coast 50 years ago.

Dozens of survivors made it to shore after the vessel was wrecked in 1656.

A small group set off for Batavia in the Dutch East Indies to raise the alarm but little trace was ever found of the 68 who remained on the mainland.

Henry Van Zanden, author of the book 'Lost White Tribes Of Australia Part 1' thinks a Dutch settlement could have thrived in an area he's visited.

The precise location is not being disclosed because it's on private property.

While Mr Van Zanden admits he hasn't found any artefacts of a 17th century Dutch nature, he believes Gilt Dragon survivors could have survived there.

"I think I've found the possibility that a lost white tribe existed in Western Australia well before the settlement of the east coast of New South Wales, I believe this happened in 1656," he said.

Mr Van Zanden believes the settlement may have thrived until the 1830s and backs his claim with an article published in the 'Leeds Mercury' in 1834.

White tribe

The newspaper printed a replicated account of a supposed explorer's journey in Northern Australia, during which a "Lieutenant Nixon" came upon a "tribe" of white people who'd been living as an independent group for nearly two centuries.

There is evidence the article was a hoax.

But, Mr Van Zanden is among those who believes there's at least some truth in it, and some of it may have come from the real life explorer Robert Dale.

"The Governor James Stirling received that account from Dale who'd been exploring at that time, 1832, around the Karikin Lakes and his journal has never been found," he said.

Mr Van Zanden is certain that whoever was behind the Leeds Mercury article had some access to the 'missing' Dale journal.

"He could see these people in canoes down there, some had one person in the canoe, some had two, and it was dotted with all of these islands, especially on the northern side, there seemed to be a river in from the southern edges," he recounted.

"In the distance he thought he could see a group of habitations in a grove of tall trees.

"Initially when I first went there, I thought that's not possible, it's underwater but on the second occasion I've been there, the land does rise upwards.

"It would've made an ideal location to defend."

Mr Van Zanden believes it was Dale who possibly spent time with the so-called 'lost white tribe'.

"He was just amazed at the story they told," he said.

"The story they told was a story that their ancestors arrived 170 years ago and that equates quite well with Vergulde Draeck or Gilt Dragon."

"According to 'Lieutenant Nixon' or Dale, there had been some inevitable changes in the community over such a long period.

"They were no longer a white settlement, it wasn't a white settlement as such, they were now a white Aboriginal tribe because they'd spent probably 10, 15 years with the Aborigines.

"They might have certainly lived separately, they lived separately across the river to this southern Aboriginal tribe and that's been borne out by many Aboriginal stories."

Archaeologist Heather Builth thinks there may be substance to the argument.

"He's done a good job in allocating this scenario to some historical documentation," she said.

"I think from having a look at it, it fits the bill and it's really not that far from the coast at all but it had everything that could sustain a group of people for hundreds of years."

Doctor Builth, who's an adjunct research associate with Monash University, believes that if the Dutch lived on, they must have relied on Aboriginal people, for without their help, the harsh Australian environment would've led to their demise.

She says she has found something worthy of further investigation.

'What I did find that I think was a bit different to what I've found in Aboriginal archaeology was that there were pits," she said.

"I think these pits could show with some analysis that maybe there was storage happening there and that could differentiate between an Aboriginal economy and a Dutch economy."

Location clues

Henry Van Zanden's self-published book compiles previous accounts by those who've taken an interest in Dutch shipwreck survivors.

He's certainly not the first Australian to get excited about the 1834 Leeds Mercury article.

Les Hiddins, also known as the Bush Tucker Man, brought the story to a national audience in the 1990s, and has done extensive follow-up work on the issue.

He went looking for locations closer to Central Australia.

Henry Van Zanden believes Les Hiddins was out by quite a long way and considers other clues which bring the settlement further west.

"Les took everything very literally on the article although he did make adjustment that the latitude was wrong so therefore he looked more towards South Australia and Palm Valley but they had different prime meridians years ago.

"Now we just assume that everybody used Greenwich prime meridian, that's zero longitude that runs through Greenwich in England.

"But, other countries, for instance the Portuguese and the Spanish, they used the Azores as the prime meridian.

"Now when you use the same longitude or co-ordinates as the Leeds Mercury article, that brings you right across the settlement.

Mr Van Zanden admits the lack of artefacts of European origin creates a challenge.

"The biggest problem is finding European artefacts at the location of a settlement and that hasn't been found," he said.

"Although all of the physical details of the area fit in almost exactly to the Leeds Mercury article, there doesn't seem to be one mistake anywhere, everything fits in perfectly."

The author says the hard evidence was likely washed away in a major 19th century flood.

The chairman of the VOC Research Society, Tom Vanderveldt, has become an authority on evidence of shipwreck survivors.

He likes Henry Van Zanden's book but only to a point.

"It's informing the reader that there's a lot of mysteries but there's no conclusions," he said.

"It's interesting reading, it's a well-presented book, it's really good, I can't fault it and the photographs are very helpful.

"But, the stories attached to it are a bit dubious, again, for lack of evidence, it's sometimes not even circumstantial evidence."

Tom Vanderveldt says he's looked at Karikin Lakes before and found little of interest.

They certainly discovered nothing dating from 17th century Europe.

"We made it a rule that anything with a straight line was man-made and the rest was bush," he said.

"It didn't yield anything, the metal detector we used found one bullet and that was all."

Genetic link

Mr Vanderveldt won't shoot down all of Mr Van Zanden's arguments.

He is putting more faith in DNA testing of samples from Aboriginal people which has already shown a Western European influence.

There's an ongoing attempt to work out when that genetic link started, remembering that not everyone who was on a Dutch vessel was Dutch.

Until those tests are completed, it appears that Dutch settlements which predated the First Fleet will remain a figment of the imagination, and a target for fevered speculation.

Professor Mike McCarthy of the WA Maritime Museum has seen more than his fair share of fevered speculation.

"There's a lot of ifs and buts but my rule is not to spoil a good story with the truth by being a boring bureaucrat," he said.

"You allow people to develop their interests as I did with HMAS Sydney all those years and encourage people not to speculate beyond what they are able to prove or what is a reasonable speculation."

Professor McCarthy says there's little that Mr Van Zanden has presented that would convince him of a Karikin Lakes settlement.

'I can't see really strong evidence here that can cause anybody to conclude that it occurred," he said.

"Yeah, it's a great story, it might have occurred, it's interesting."

The relative lack of physical evidence of Gilt Dragon survivors means there's a vast historical vacuum which is being filled with inquiry, and fantasy.

Professor McCarthy says there is little evidence.

"The hard evidence that we know of is in the form of coins that were found by two young boys in the 1930s in the region north of Seabird, and they found silver coins, some of Japanese style that were clearly from Gilt Dragon, the date range finishes just before the Gilt Dragon period.

"There was also a skeleton found, a very powdery skeleton in that same region, beyond that, the evidence is nil.

"So how do you lose 68 people is the big question."

"One would've expected far more remains to be visible, one would also have expected far more to have entered into the Indigenous legend.

"I cannot see how you can have a group of European people in a settlement in Australia and not have Aboriginal people comment on it."

Henry Van Zanden does talk enthusiastically about the Gilt Dragon survivors receiving help from local Indigenous people.

"Now you imagine 68 people and you are an Aboriginal group who don't number anything like that big, do you think it's possible you would assist them or would you be fearful of this group of spirits or whatever that have come ashore?"

He says studies show Aboriginal people tended to help small groups of shipwreck survivors.

Professor McCarthy says there's not much else in it, and people need to really look for, and find, solid evidence.

"Bring to us evidence of the objects that they've seen that would say that the Dutch were here," he said.

"It's the physical things that allow us to say yes, it happened, unlike say, a historical document from 1834 which I clearly think is a hoax.

"If it's not there then we have to say carry on, good luck, but let's keep it within the bounds of decent speculation or surmise or hypotheses."

In her resignation from politics, Kelly O'Dwyer said she feared another miscarriage in Canberra, far from home. Her announcement is shocking for more than just party-political reasons, writes Emma A. Jane.